Science and Imagination

Two more words for consideration … SCIENCE. IMAGINATION.

As defined by the Oxford Dictionary:

IMAGINATION: the faculty or action of forming new ideas, or images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses.

SCIENCE: the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.

On the surface, some may think SCIENCE or IMAGINATION.

You can’t have both, can you?

Science is the process and proof. Imagination is the moon-shot thinking.

How about … SCIENCE and IMAGINATION?

Let’s look at rain through the lens of science and imagination.

Rain (Science)

The scientific definition of rain is “moisture that condenses from the atmosphere that falls in visible drops”.

RAIN (Imagination)

My observation of rain from the porch of a cabin in Blairsville, GA:

The journey of ages from cloud to ground. What does the ride back up look like?  Together with the rhythm of a thousand parachuting droplets into the forest, like a large audience’s approval of the orchestral performance in nature’s slow motion. The thin pine needles are no match for the broad landing zone of the leaves of an oak. To stop only for a brief moment before continuing to the forest floor, crisp and fresh turn to soggy, mossy and damp. Dropping from the sky in organized chaos, dizzied, off-balance circles of life gather to fill their role building the forest. Some continue the journey in a twisting fury descending down the mountain with millions of their kind … falling, growing, flowing, climbing.

Both science and imagination have their place, but often occupy the same space. Good science starts with an active imagination. As a child, Albert Einstein imagined riding a wave of light. As usual, it all starts with a wonderfully crazy idea and the discipline to chase it down.